St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
We now move on to the next, delayed item of business, which is motion S2M-4827, in the name of Dennis Canavan, that the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Bill.
I thank the non-Executive bills unit, all the people who were involved in producing the stage 1 report—especially the convener, members and clerks of the Enterprise and Culture Committee—and all those who contributed to the research that the committee commissioned. I also thank the Executive, particularly the First Minister and the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, Tom McCabe, for agreeing to give qualified support to my bill.
This is the second time we have had a stage 1 debate on the general principles of the bill. On the previous occasion, nearly a year ago, the Executive lodged an amendment that referred the bill back to the Enterprise and Culture Committee for further consideration, despite the fact that the committee had unanimously recommended that Parliament support the general principles of the bill. Parliament agreed to the Executive's amendment by 66 votes to 58. The committee therefore undertook further consideration of the bill and commissioned independent research on the economic, social and cultural costs and benefits of a bank holiday on St Andrew's day and of alternative options for celebrating that day.
Part of the original criticism of my bill was that the bill of itself—I emphasise "of itself"—would not have achieved the objective of ensuring that St Andrew's day be a day of national celebration. The bill would have given St Andrew's day the same legislative status as any other bank holiday, but would not have ensured widespread recognition of the holiday or a national celebration of St Andrew's day. Additional measures would have been required to ensure such a national celebration. The committee has given serious consideration to that point.
The research report contains useful examples of national celebrations in other countries: Ireland, France, the United States and Sweden. The report also suggests some options for celebrating St Andrew's day, including cultural and sporting events. For example, last year the Scottish Executive organised a St Andrew's day ceilidh in Edinburgh. Similar events could be held at other venues throughout Scotland. Other suggestions include civic parades, pageants, local festivals, concerts, a St Andrew's day marathon, St Andrew's day cards, marketing of Scottish produce, an annual St Andrew's day lecture on a Scottish theme, the organisation of children's competitions and international cultural exchanges. If such events were organised—some at national level and some at local level—throughout the country, St Andrew's day could be a day of great national celebration.
When first I introduced my bill, there was criticism from some people in the business community, who claimed that it would be bad for business. Not everybody in the business community agreed with that view, however. Supporters of my bill include the Scottish Retail Consortium, the Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions and some leading business people, such as Lord Macfarlane of Bearsden, who considered that a St Andrew's day national holiday would be a great business opportunity rather than a threat. Although the Confederation of British Industry Scotland, the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland and the banks expressed reservations, even they have indicated that they will be prepared to go along with the proposal, provided that the St Andrew's day holiday becomes a replacement for an existing holiday, rather than an additional holiday. The Executive has, apparently, now reached the same conclusion. Earlier this month, the First Minister said that the Executive would support the bill, provided that the St Andrew's day holiday was a replacement for an existing local holiday, rather than an additional holiday.
On that point, does Mr Canavan agree that one holiday that would not be up for trading would be the internationally renowned May day holiday, which I think should remain?
Absolutely. My preferred option is still for the St Andrew's day holiday to be an additional holiday, but if it is to be a replacement holiday, I certainly do not want it to be a replacement for May day. I do not think that the Executive would want that either.
Despite my preference for St Andrew's day to be an additional holiday, I am realistic enough to accept that the bill has virtually no chance of getting parliamentary approval without the support of the Executive so, in that context, I agreed to make a joint statement with the First Minister earlier this month. It is important to establish the principle of a St Andrew's day national holiday. I am confident that, once the holiday is established, recognition of it will grow in the years ahead and, with the help of negotiations between employers and trade unions, it will eventually become an additional holiday.
This is an historic opportunity for Parliament to show a lead to the nation by giving statutory recognition to St Andrew's day. By doing so, we will encourage the people of Scotland to celebrate our patron saint and our national identity as well as our multiethnic, multifaith and multicultural diversity. It will also enable us to celebrate our membership of the international community and help promote Scotland on the world stage.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Bill.
As Mr Canavan said, we are in the unusual position of having a second stage 1 debate on a bill. However, the time that has elapsed since the previous debate has been well used. I am glad that I can speak on behalf of the Executive to endorse the recommendations of the Enterprise and Culture Committee. The fact that I am able to do so is due in no small part to the willingness that has been shown by the member in charge of the bill, Dennis Canavan, to accommodate some of the concerns that we expressed at our earlier consideration. I thank him for that because it has allowed us to move on.
Dennis Canavan has always made it clear that the ultimate intention of his proposal is to facilitate the creation of a national day to celebrate Scotland and its people. The Scottish Executive subscribes completely to that aim and we think that initiatives that we have led so far are evidence of our intentions. Improvement of how we mark St Andrew's day has the potential to remind people from all walks of life just how much there is to celebrate in this great country.
Last year, for the first time, the Scottish Executive supported the one Scotland ceilidh on St Andrew's day in Edinburgh and I am pleased to confirm that we will support it again this year. It will help to launch Edinburgh's winter festival. We are also planning to expand our celebrations of St Andrew's day to other cities around Scotland, all under the banner of one Scotland, many cultures, and we will announce our plans in the near future.
The celebrations this year—and, I hope, in future years—will have a strong emphasis on young people celebrating a modern Scotland in which children can mark St Andrew's day and in which the Executive can help by the distribution of material such as an event box to allow children to develop their own events and activities around 30 November.
Once again, we will support and encourage the celebration of St Andrew's day internationally. We have already distributed about 1,500 saltires and event packs to people in Foreign and Commonwealth Office posts to help them to celebrate the day, and the First Minister will again this year send a message around the world to be used in places where the day is celebrated.
We do such things because we believe in the benefits to Scotland of celebrating our national day, although it is important that those benefits be not undermined by the ways in which we celebrate it. We welcomed the Enterprise and Culture Committee's decision to commission work into the costs and benefits of various approaches to celebrating the day, and we are well aware that the Government needs to take the lead in such matters. The research provided useful information about how such matters are handled in other countries. One of the conclusions of the consultants' report is that the Government must give a lead in improving the celebration of our national day: I hope that the Executive has proved by its actions that we intend to give that lead in the long term, and we hope that Parliament will be our partner in those endeavours.
What most concerned us about the bill was the possibility that a false impression of what it can do would be created. The joint statement that has been agreed with the member in charge of the bill helps to address such concerns. Copies of the statement have been made available at the back of the chamber. It underlines the economic and promotional opportunities that St Andrew's day offers and stresses that we should not be complacent about any potential negative economic impact of adding an additional holiday to people's annual entitlement. It also makes it clear that the bill's purpose is to encourage employers and employees to substitute an existing local holiday in favour of a national St Andrew's day holiday. The bill will not in itself create a national holiday; therefore, the statement makes it clear that the bill is symbolic, but provides an important signal in favour of greater celebration of our national day.
The bill has a symbolic aspect, but it also represents an extremely important contribution. It will combine with the initiative that we are taking to improve the celebration of St Andrew's day. Therefore, I urge members to endorse the joint statement and—more important—the principles of the bill.
I congratulate Dennis Canavan on getting his bill this far. To get a bill to this stage is no mean achievement for a back bencher. I hope that members will agree to pass the bill at stage 1 so that it will progress to stage 2 and eventually become law. A holiday for St Andrew's day is, of course, a long-standing Scottish National Party policy, so we welcome this first step towards making that day a holiday.
Scotland has among the lowest number of bank holidays in Europe: we have eight, while other countries in Europe have 10 or 12 and some have even more. An extra day's holiday for Scots would therefore still leave us with well below the average number of bank holidays in Europe.
Some people have given the impression that the business community in its entirety is against having an extra day's holiday, but that is simply not true. Dennis Canavan mentioned the Scottish Retail Consortium. The SRC supplied the Enterprise and Culture Committee with figures that showed that sales from a St Andrew's day holiday on a Monday could represent as much as £88 million, which would be an increase of almost £30 million on sales on a normal Monday. The Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions said that an additional bank holiday would encourage important growth in the tourism industry, particularly from the domestic market. If we are serious about growing our tourism market by 50 per cent over the next 10 years, initiatives such as an extra bank holiday are exactly what we need, rather than robbing Peter to pay Paul by taking a holiday away from elsewhere in the year.
St Andrew's day could be the linchpin in a tourism marketing campaign that would take us from the autumn gold campaign to the hogmanay celebrations and on through the Celtic connections festival in Glasgow. A series of winter festivals for tourists would do a great deal to boost tourism—we could use St Andrew's day as the launch pad for those festivals.
Those who are feart of an extra holiday on St Andrew's day need look no further than Ireland to see the potential of such a holiday. Ireland uses St Patrick's day to help to grow its tourism industry and its export markets, and to attract people to do business in and with Ireland. An economic survey found that St Patrick's day is worth €80 million to Dublin alone. Money is spent on food, drink, transport, accommodation and tickets for events. Some 29 per cent of people who visit Dublin are from overseas and 47 per cent of them come specifically for the St Patrick's day celebrations—in fact, 81 per cent said that they would return to Ireland because of the experience of their St Patrick's day trip.
St Patrick's day is an enormous success worldwide. It allows Ireland to sell Ireland the brand around the world and provides a marketing opportunity that most countries would give their right arm for. Professor Tom Devine, of the centre for Irish and Scottish studies, has said:
"It is no accident that the Irish have raised their national profile above those of their neighbours."
He went on to say that
"It is a hard one to quantify in terms of Irish punts, but their celebration and marketing of St Patrick's Day has been a huge factor in the Irish economic miracle."
Normal countries around the world have a day on which to celebrate their history and culture, but Scotland has for far too long lacked such a day, which would give us a platform for the expansion of a celebration of all things Scottish and give a particular boost to our artistic and cultural communities. The SNP believes that it would be a fantastic opportunity for Scotland and its people if we were fully to embrace a St Andrew's day holiday. We need to put into practice what the Irish have already done; we need to learn that lesson. If we do that, we will reap the rewards. If we do not, it will be because of the feart-of-anything-Scottish faction on the Lib-Lab benches who oppose an extra holiday for Scots.
The SNP will support the bill. However, if the proposal is simply to substitute St Andrew's day for another holiday, that is not good enough and the bill does not go far enough. Next May, voters will get the chance to elect an SNP Government led by Alex Salmond. That Government will not rob Scots of one of their precious holidays; instead, we will ensure that Scotland gets an extra day's holiday to celebrate our history and culture and to market Scotland as the ideal place to visit and in which to live, work, do business and enjoy a day off.
Stewart Maxwell was doing so well until his final point.
I join members in commending Dennis Canavan for the way in which he has pursued the issue and for lodging his member's bill. He has done a tremendous amount of work in consulting interested parties, rallying support and building a coalition of interests to back his proposal. The Scottish Conservatives support the general principles of the bill and will be happy to vote for it at decision time.
It is almost a year since Parliament last debated the bill, back in October 2005. It is a great pity that it has taken the Executive a year to come round to the view that the bill should be supported. We have seen parliamentary time and expense squandered when we could have been making progress.
From day one, the Conservatives accepted that the bill would not, of itself, create a public holiday; in fact, it is not legislatively competent for the Scottish Parliament to create a new holiday or to have it enforced. The bill is simply permissive in that it will allow banks the opportunity to take a holiday on St Andrew's day if they wish to do so. The support of the Executive was crucial to the bill because of that. Without the Executive's saying that it would take a lead in trying to encourage the taking of St Andrew's day as a holiday and doing that with its own employees in the public sector, the bill would be pointless. It was, therefore, vital that the Executive show its support.
The Conservative position all along has been that we do not wish to see an additional holiday granted. The Enterprise and Culture Committee heard strong evidence from employers that they do not want there to be an additional day's holiday. With respect to what Dennis Canavan and Stewart Maxwell have said, that was the weight of the evidence that the committee heard. Why do employers not want an extra holiday? It is because it would lead to extra costs; small businesses in particular would struggle to compete with larger rivals that would have the staff to cover the additional public holiday. The Department of Trade and Industry has estimated that there would, at 2000 prices, be a cost to Scotland of about £160 million for that additional day's holiday, which is probably equivalent to £200 million today. I am, therefore, pleased that the Executive has come round to our view that we should have a holiday on St Andrew's day but in substitution for a holiday at a different time of year.
Does the member acknowledge that the debate about whether to have an additional holiday is in danger of descending into a phoney debate, and that the joint statement that was issued by Dennis Canavan and the First Minister clarifies that the bill does not legislate, and would never have legislated, for that?
Susan Deacon has made a fair point. However, I point out that the statement from the First Minister and Dennis Canavan says that if the bill is passed it will
"encourage employers and employees to substitute an existing local holiday in favour of a National St Andrew's Day holiday".
That is the point that I have just made. It is a pity that that principle could not have been agreed to a year ago; instead, time and resources were wasted waiting for the Executive to come round to that view.
Last October, in the previous stage 1 debate on the bill, the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business, George Lyon, said:
"The principle that he"—
meaning me—
"and the other Tories adopt is that St Andrew's day should be a substitute for an existing bank holiday. If that happened, which bank holiday would we choose? If the holiday was a substitute not for a bank holiday but for a local holiday, how would that be achieved? How would we ensure in practice that workers had the day off?"—[Official Report, 6 October 2005; c 19899.]
Those might be valid questions, but they are questions to which the minister must now find the answers. It is a pity that, instead of being prepared to listen to the arguments at the time, he asked such spurious questions.
At least we have been consistent from day one. I very much welcome the fact that other parties have come round to our way of thinking; once again, the Conservatives are setting the agenda. We are delighted to support the bill's general principles and look forward to celebrating St Andrew's day with a holiday from this year onwards.
I, too, congratulate Dennis Canavan on bringing us to this point. I also thank my fellow committee members and the committee's clerks for their work.
I found it most interesting to examine the bill's different ramifications. I should say that I was persuaded quite early on of the bill's merits, particularly after Dennis Canavan spoke personally to me about it. I echo the tributes that other members have paid to his skills of persuasion.
As almost everything that can be said about why we are where we are has already been said, I will change the agenda slightly and talk briefly about St Andrew himself. He was not only a follower of John the Baptist, but one of Jesus's earliest followers. He is also the patron saint of Russia and Romania. There are at least three or four different legends or stories about how he became the patron saint of Scotland, but he had certainly attained that position by the time of the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320.
Members have mentioned St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, whose day is hugely celebrated by Irish people in many English-speaking parts of the world, particularly the United States. It is also worth remembering that he is the patron saint of many other countries including—much to one's surprise—Nigeria, and of excluded people and engineers. In any case, Ireland has certainly used St Patrick's day as a marketing tool very much to its economic advantage. As I pointed out in committee, we have a huge opportunity to make use of St Andrew's international links in the same way that the Irish have made use of St Patrick.
When we did our spadework and got together all the statistics and facts, especially the results of a poll of 1,000 or so Scots, it became evident that there is a lot of enthusiasm for making St Andrew's day a holiday, particularly among young people. Once the bill is passed, we should use the holiday to focus on forging international connections among the young people of Russia, Romania, Greece and Scotland. We could, for example, have exchanges between schools, youth groups and communities. Why not? Fostering friendship and an understanding among young people that we are all fellow travellers in a fragile world can do nothing but good for the cause of international co-operation and development and—ultimately—peace. We can translate much of what a saint who lived at the time of Jesus and, indeed, Jesus himself were about into something that could do a lot of good in a broader international context.
I commend the work that has been done on this matter. I supported the bill from the word go and believe that its general principles will be approved unanimously by Parliament. It is quite an achievement for a back bencher to have got this far—I congratulate Dennis Canavan on doing so.
It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of the Enterprise and Culture Committee, to recommend that Parliament agree to the principles of the bill. I would also like to add my congratulations to Dennis Canavan, who has shown leadership and tenacity. I do not want to dwell on the history of the past year or so, although there may be lessons to be learned, both by committees and by the Executive, about how we handle bills. The positions that were taken last year could perhaps have been handled slightly differently.
Once Parliament had decided to refer the bill back for further consideration by the Enterprise and Culture Committee, we decided to do two things. First, we decided to accept that the remit that we had been given would be fulfilled in the spirit as well as to the letter of what Parliament had agreed. Secondly, we thought that the best thing to do was to begin by garnering original research on St Andrew's day, and on the three different potential impacts of a bank holiday on St Andrew's day—the economic impact, the cultural impact and the social impact.
As Jamie Stone said, St Andrew's day is celebrated in 30 countries throughout the world. St Andrew is the patron saint of a number of countries, not just of Scotland. The consultants who were appointed decided to select four countries in an effort to benchmark and compare the likely impact on Scotland of a bank holiday for St Andrew's day, based on what happened with St Patrick's day in Ireland, Bastille day in France, independence day in the USA and the national day in Sweden. Although that exercise was commissioned by the Enterprise and Culture Committee, and supported by funding from the Conveners Group, we went out of our way to ensure that the Executive was properly represented at official level on the steering group of the body that oversaw that work, so that at every stage we could ensure that the Executive was fully aware of how the study was going, what the findings of the research were and what the final report would look like.
Working in co-operation with the committee, the bill's sponsor and the Executive has got us to where we are today. The Executive now accepts the general principles of the bill, the committee unanimously accepted those principles, and it looks as if we are going to have unanimous support—or certainly substantial majority support—for the bill today.
I would like to mention one other point that the committee has stressed. Passing the bill will not, of itself, be enough to ensure that St Andrew's day is properly celebrated, either at home or abroad. The information that we have available through the consultancy and research exercise that we commissioned gives us a host of new ideas, which I hope will be pursued by the Executive and by others to ensure that we have a truly comprehensive programme of celebration for St Andrew's day.
Finally, I would like to make a recommendation to the Minister for Parliamentary Business. It would be wholly appropriate if we could time the stage 3 debate on the bill for 30 November this year. That would send out a loud and clear message about a Parliament that is unanimous in its recommendation to the people.
I will support the general principles of the bill and I welcome the joint statement from Dennis Canavan and the First Minister, which has gone some considerable way towards achieving clarification of the bill and agreeing a joint way forward. We should welcome the sensible and pragmatic approach that is being taken. That approach has the potential to achieve a broad basis of support and to enable a range of activities to be developed to mark St Andrew's day.
That is why it has been disappointing to hear the front-bench speeches from the SNP and the Tories, who still seek somehow to claim credit for suggesting the ideas. I recognise the contribution that Dennis Canavan's initiative in introducing a member's bill has made to getting the issue debated and discussed. It was disappointing during earlier debates—it has happened again today—to hear suggestions that any one party more than the others wants to celebrate our Scottishness. We have to avoid descending into a bidding war over whose tartan is the brightest or whose kilt is the biggest. This debate offers us a good chance to come together to do practical things that will be widely welcomed.
I guess I am saying that the means justify the end, and I am pleased with where we have got to today. However, it is right to ask questions about how we got here and why it has taken us so long. The Enterprise and Culture Committee has asked about the lessons that must be learned.
The joint statement from the First Minister and Dennis Canavan says specifically that the bill is largely symbolic. We are consciously moving towards putting primary legislation on the statute book for symbolic purposes. At the very least, we ought to be careful that that does not act as a precedent.
We should consider how the Executive and the Parliament can co-operate better at an earlier stage of members' bills, especially when there is broad agreement on the general aspirations. However, I agree with the convener of the Enterprise and Culture Committee that the Parliament can learn lessons too. What do MSPs mean when they sign a member's bill proposal? Are we saying that we want the issue to be debated, or are we saying that we will support the bill right the way through? There is confusion there, and we should think about devising mechanisms that sit somewhere between a member's bill proposal, and all that goes with that, and a member's motion as a means of getting ideas debated and developed.
We must be clear from the outset about what bills will and will not do. I have read and reread the policy memorandum and the financial memorandum that accompany this bill. They are clear that the bill's direct impact will be relatively limited, but they also assess in detail the costs and benefits of an additional holiday, which the bill will not deliver. The joint statement went some way towards providing clarification, but we will have to work hard in the months and years ahead to be clear about what the Parliament is legislating for.
When we put in place practical legislative measures, we should consider what is happening elsewhere. Only last week, the DTI completed a consultation on public holidays and bank holidays, and I am not convinced that we kept as close an eye as we might have done on that parallel piece of work. Having listened to Stewart Maxwell's speech, I am interested to know what part Westminster SNP MPs played in feeding into the DTI exercise and what steps they took to support the Government's position in considering extending the provision of holidays.
We are moving in the right direction and I welcome that. As well as considering St Andrew's day, I hope that the Executive will consider the wider guddle so that parents, schools, banks and shops can all be off on the same day in the future.
I join others in congratulating Dennis Canavan on his hard work on the bill. The bill has had wide support, with 75 members signing the original proposal. Some members have pointed out that we had a debate on the issue almost a year ago. In that debate, the Executive got itself into the bizarre situation of opposing the committee's unanimous stage 1 report. A year on, we must ask the question: what exactly has changed in the past year to make the Executive do such a spectacular U-turn?
In the debate a year ago, Tom McCabe stated that there were two very important reasons why the bill should be rejected. The first was that
"we should legislate only when it is necessary to do so"
and the second was that
"when we legislate, we should be able to give practical effect to that legislation."
The minister then stated:
"the bill does not satisfy those two important criteria."—[Official Report, 6 October 2005; c 19875.]
A year on, the bill remains exactly the same and it still does not fulfil the two criteria that the minister said were so important. Given that the minister will support the bill tonight, it is clear that those criteria were not quite as important as he made them out to be.
I thought that the Executive might have changed its mind as a result of the Experian report that the committee commissioned and published. However, when the minister appeared before the committee he said that that was not the case because, although the report was generally positive, it did not provide decisive evidence in favour of having a St Andrew's day holiday. To be perfectly frank, I remain in the dark about why the Executive has made such a spectacular U-turn. I suspect that the real reason is that, in the light of his poor ratings in the opinion polls, the First Minister is becoming increasingly nervous about his prospects for next year's election and is desperate to wrap himself in the saltire.
I have little doubt that true economic, social and cultural benefits will be derived from Parliament's support for the bill and its creation of a St Andrew's day holiday as a day of national celebration. Although I welcome the fact that the Executive has agreed to support the bill at this stage, I share Stewart Maxwell's regret that the new holiday, rather than being added to the present list of holidays, will substitute for an existing local holiday. Given that Scotland's number of public holidays is one of the smallest in the European Union, a more socially progressive Executive would have been prepared to establish an additional holiday.
The minister stated in his letter to the committee of 11 September that the St Andrew's day holiday should replace an existing local holiday. In the committee, I mentioned to him the existence of regional holidays. Perhaps he will clarify whether he expects a regional holiday or an existing bank holiday to be replaced.
In the debate almost a year ago, the Executive's amendment stated that we should seek
"to uphold the consensus across the Parliament that we should only legislate where necessary".
I am delighted that the Executive has accepted that the consensus in Scotland is that we should have a national holiday to celebrate our nation and that the minister and the Executive parties will join the more enlightened members who supported the bill the first time round.
Last night I attended the inaugural dinner for the globalscot network, a prestigious event that was attended by guests from all over the world who had come to celebrate their roots and to discuss the contribution that they can make to Scotland. Listening to the conversations at last night's dinner brought home to me just how much we have to celebrate here in Scotland. Many people spoke highly of the sense of confidence that is developing in the country.
I would not like to claim that we are the best wee country in the world, but there is no doubt that we are a great wee country that has a great deal to be proud of. We have a history of travel, innovation and discovery to be proud of and our culture, environment and food are renowned around the world. Once again we have our own Parliament, which has a magnificent building. We have a patron saint, a flag and an annual date for celebration, but only as a result of a member's bill—I commend Dennis Canavan's tenacity—have we had the opportunity to investigate and focus on where we have missed out by failing to enshrine that day in our calendar.
The evidence that the committee received overwhelmingly supported the creation of a holiday on St Andrew's day. Even people who had concerns about establishing a new holiday wanted to associate themselves with the principle that we should celebrate the national day, which appears to be well celebrated in many other parts of the world. In our own country, on the other hand, it passes relatively unnoticed.
The Experian report that the committee commissioned to examine the economic, social and cultural benefits of celebrating St Andrew's day provided some highly encouraging case studies of how other countries celebrate their national days. Ireland offers a good example of how our national day could develop. The fact that large public events are held and numerous festivals take place in towns and villages throughout the country ensures genuine community involvement. Ireland's day is an official bank holiday, but it was celebrated more abroad than at home until the Government decided to rectify the situation. That investment paid off and there is now a five-day festival, with a significant number of overseas visitors coming to Dublin and giving a huge boost to the tourism business.
Sweden, in legally regulating its national day in 1983 and establishing it as a public holiday in 2005, was concerned about the economic impact of an additional public holiday that would bring its total number of public holidays to 11. As we have heard, we have a mere eight. The Swedish Government researched the impact on gross domestic product of the additional holiday, but its report was not conclusive and was difficult to evaluate. Reducing such days of celebration to mere economics seems to me to miss the point, as Sweden found out.
Celebrating our national day will imbue our country with a sense of pride and self-confidence, which will be well rewarded by encouraging investment and stemming outward migration. I welcome the Executive's change of heart and hope that the bill, if it is passed, will provide the legislative framework for a national day of celebration. I also hope that, over time, the day will develop into an additional holiday that truly reflects the pride and confidence that our great wee country deserves.
Last night, when I looked up what I had said in last year's debate on the bill, it seemed a little like groundhog day, because in the morning debate that day I had spoken in an SNP debate on the economy. However, we are where we are.
Last year, we said that Dennis Canavan deserved commendation for his inspiration and his drive. As many members have said, he also deserves great commendation for his tenacity in persisting with his idea. Fundamentally, a great deal of benefit can accrue not just to the Scottish economy but, as others have said, to the broader cultural life of our country, if we make much more than we have done so far of St Andrew's day. We should recognise that and not be afraid to do that.
Michael Matheson asked what had changed in the past year regarding the bill and I confess that I asked myself the same question. I can see that there is a detailed report from Experian and that the Enterprise and Culture Committee has done more work, much of which is good and worth while, but I cannot understand what has changed in the broader principle of the bill because the bill is the same, as has been said.
Does the member accept that the clear and agreed statement from the member in charge of the bill and the First Minister, while perhaps it ought not to have been such a long time in coming, has gone a considerable way towards making clear what the bill will achieve and setting out shared aspirations for the bill? The fact is that we were not there a year ago, even if we should have been.
I agree that the joint statement is positive, but I am not sure what is in it that could not have been signed up to on 6 October 2005. That is the broader point.
When the minister spoke in the stage 1 debate last year, he made a number of fair points about the nature of the bill. As Susan Deacon said, the bill is largely symbolic and when we consider such legislation there is a danger that we might overestimate its impact.
As Michael Matheson said, the minister made the point last year about the fundamental principle of not legislating when it is not necessary to do so. That is a valid point to which we probably ought to pay more attention, but we frequently do not do so in this place. I do not understand what changed the Executive's mind and, frankly, perhaps it does not matter. Perhaps the fact that there has been a change of heart and that we now have the joint statement is all that we should be concerned about. However, did the Executive conduct its own research into the potential impact of the bill prior to the previous stage 1 debate? Was the Experian report necessary or is it in effect a £25,000 fig leaf for the minister? That is a fundamental question, which we should consider.
Serious questions arise with regard to procedure. The original committee report on the bill was unanimous, but the Executive sent it back. However, I see little in the substance of the second unanimous report that was not contained in the first.
Dennis Canavan has produced an imaginative proposal that deserves support and I hope that it will receive unanimous support this evening. I am a little bit puzzled about the Executive's role, but perhaps we will leave it at that. However, I hope that we will today make a clear statement about the Parliament's role and the importance that we ought to attribute to our patron saint.
I add to the litany of praise for Dennis Canavan. I am jealous of his skills, because he has persuaded the Executive to go halfway toward his proposal, whereas I recently spoke to 55 amendments to the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill, but failed to persuade the Executive to support a single one. He has skills that I do not have.
Will the member take an intervention?
All right—if the member wants to land herself in it.
I have no desire to land myself in it. Does Mr Gorrie accept that whether his amendments were successful was entirely up to the Communities Committee and that, to date, the committee has decided that his amendments did not have merit?
Let us stay with the bill that we are discussing.
I was commenting on the Deputy Minister for Communities' position, which is relevant—the position of the member's committee is up to her.
Much abuse has been hurled at the Executive for changing its view. One of the problems in politics is that, if a Government takes a view that on reflection it thinks is a bit stupid and so changes its mind, it is given all sorts of abuse. We are encouraged in the good book to take pleasure in sinners who repent, so we should proceed on the basis that it is better late than never. The Executive has at least gone halfway to a sensible approach.
On the issue of an additional holiday, as Susan Deacon and others said, the general situation with holidays is a complete jungle. Another of my un-success stories is that, in my 26 years as a councillor, I made repeated attempts to sort out the holidays in Edinburgh and Lothian, but failed totally. The situation is a complete muddle and we should try to get a grip on it. The idea that the whole economy would collapse if we had another holiday is ridiculous. I hope that we continue to press for the establishment of a serious holiday.
We have made advances. The saltire—St Andrew's flag—is more prominent and prevalent than it used to be, although we should make more of it. We should regard a St Andrew's day festival as an opportunity to enjoy ourselves and to make money. St Andrew is our patron saint because of good marketing by the monks of St Andrews who wanted to establish their pilgrim trade. That is why our patron saint is St Andrew, rather than a more local saint such as St Columba or one of the saints from the south-west of Scotland. That gives us a good lead to have an international day, as Jamie Stone suggested, with festivals and activities of all sorts so that we enjoy ourselves, encourage tourism and make money. Some people say that the date is a bad one, but that is wrong—we need a bit of lifting of our spirits in late November. It would be a good day for shopping and would stimulate the economy a lot.
In all respects, we should celebrate St Andrew's day. Voting for the bill would be a step forward, but we must keep up the pressure so that we get the full loaf. Let us enjoy eating half a loaf, but start working to get the other half.
I will not spare Dennis Canavan's blushes. His endeavour, experience and pragmatism put some other members who are in the chamber to shame. On Tuesday, Tony Blair underlined the importance of politicians, as well as being pragmatic, having the confidence and self-belief to take tough decisions. On the other hand, everyone loves a holiday—even at the end of November, when it is dark and miserable and we are saving for Christmas.
There was always going to be a debate about the economic advantages or disadvantages of the proposal and that issue is still up in the air. There is also an argument about whether we should celebrate St Andrew, a Christian saint who never set foot in Scotland, on the ground that that is hardly inclusive. That said, I am of the view that we should use a national day as an opportunity to celebrate Scotland and Scotland's diversity. We have at least heard some ideas—from Alex Neil, Donald Gorrie and others—about working together to make it an exciting day, on which to celebrate the best of Scotland.
Whether an additional holiday is necessary is still debatable. It would hardly be an inclusive national celebration if various sections of the population did not get the holiday. What sort of celebration would it be for low-paid workers in the private sector, who already have the lowest holiday entitlement? Some would say that such a celebration would allow the gap to grow between the people at the top, who get the holidays, and the people at the bottom. What is clear from today's debate is that we are not in any way addressing discrimination against the low paid with regard to working time, holiday entitlement and work-life balance. To suggest that that is what we are doing is not to take the issue seriously. Two million people in the UK—tens of thousands of them in Scotland—do not receive any public holidays. If we really wish to end the discrimination that divides our workforce, we must end the practice of excluding low-paid workers from public holidays and making them take them as part of their annual leave.
Stewart Maxwell has been the workers' champion here today. Continuing his theme, I am pleased to say that the Labour Party takes those issues seriously. It has a proud record in that respect and, for the first time ever, has addressed legal rights to annual holidays in the United Kingdom. There is the working time directive and maternity and paternity leave. As we would expect—and as Susan Deacon alluded to—we are going further. Working with business and trade unions, we will ensure that those who do not receive bank holidays will receive those extra eight days' paid holiday as a right.
Stewart Maxwell says that the SNP will campaign on the basis of an extra day's holiday. The campaign slogan from Labour will easily match that: "One day for the favoured few with the SNP; eight days for all with Labour". Of course, we can guarantee those rights only through Westminster. The SNP may say that it could give workers the same, or perhaps even more, but in the chaos of separatism would it be in a position to offer workers the rights that they deserve? As Jim Mather and I know, it is the bosses, not the workers, who determine employment policies in the SNP. If the SNP ever comes to power, will it guarantee that workers will not lose out on the eight days' extra paid holidays that they would get if they were still in the UK, or will it continue to give more to those who have most and lock out the have-nots, on the basis of some spurious competitive example in the chaos that would follow separation?
The minister and other members were correct to point out the promotional opportunities that are offered by the celebration of St Andrew's day as a day for Scotland. As the First Minister commented when he spoke at the globalscot conference, it comes back to Scotland having self-confidence. It is about taking pride in our identity.
Whatever Jamie Stone may say about St Andrew and our patron saint, let us remember that we live in a secular Scotland. The day may be built around our patron saint, but it is a celebration not so much of St Andrew but of what the day does to identify Scottishness. There are good arguments for our patron saint to be Columba or Ninian, but it is St Andrew and we should celebrate him. Celebrating St Andrew's day, in Scotland or abroad, is done on a secular basis and to promote, support and maintain that Scottish identity. If we Scots do not take confidence in the day and celebrate it, how can we justify promoting it and using it as an opportunity to sell Scotland abroad? Indeed, considerable opportunities are open to the Irish diaspora in the celebration of St Pat's day.
St Andrew's day is and has been celebrated. I believe that the Presiding Officer will be heading off to the 250th anniversary dinner of the St Andrew's Society of the State of New York in November. That society is by no means the oldest St Andrew's society—the St Andrew's Society of Charleston was formed in 1729. Celebrations take place not just in Scotland, but around the globe.
We are a small nation of 5 million people, yet there are 40 million to 80 million people around the world who claim some Scottish identity. We have an opportunity to bond with them and to get some benefits out of that global Scots identity, as was mentioned by Shiona Baird. The St Andrew's day opportunity has to be built upon. The Irish do the same thing successfully. We have to work at it and take it seriously here. We need to use the day as an opportunity not just to celebrate in whatever fashion we choose—many of the ideas that members from all round the chamber have expressed are perfectly sensible—but to go forth and speak with the Scottish diaspora.
There are some problems in the United States, as the minister and others know. The proximity of St Andrew's day to thanksgiving day causes problems in the US, but that is not insurmountable, as the St Andrew's Society of the State of New York and organisations elsewhere have shown. It is certainly not an impediment in Sydney, where not only is St Andrew's day celebrated but the Scottish Australian Heritage Council builds a whole Scottish week around it. When the Irish reach St Patrick's day, they ensure that a minister speaks to the Irish community, and indeed to every community in Australia, about the benefits of Irishness and the things that modern Ireland has, as well as making the link with what went on in the past.
St Andrew's day is an opportunity for us in Scotland to do the same. It is not simply about celebrating the day at home; it should be about taking confidence in being Scottish, rather than defining ourselves as not being English or anything else. It gives us the opportunity to go forth and sell Scotland as a modern, contemporary society and to link up with Scottish communities abroad, many of which have held on to a strong Scottish identity despite Scotland having given them remarkably little.
I fully support what Dennis Canavan has done—and, to its credit, what the Executive has done, albeit belatedly—to reach this stage. We need to celebrate St Andrew's day at home, but it is also a huge opportunity abroad.
As Derek Brownlee pointed out, this feels more like a debate on groundhog day than a debate on St Andrew's day. I am saddened that, despite the significant progress that we have made with the bill, there are still some moaning faces in certain areas of the chamber, with some members not celebrating the progress that we are making but instead moaning about what I think was the sensible decision last year to refer the matter back to the Enterprise and Culture Committee to allow a further and more detailed examination of the proposal.
The report that the committee commissioned from the consultants is valuable. It has highlighted a number of important issues. For example, it makes the important point that there is already an annual week-long festival around 30 November in the town of St Andrews, which is in my constituency. It features a host of events and activities, including traditional and classical music concerts, arts and crafts exhibitions, ceilidhs, dance, drama, the St Andrew's day gala ball and a fireworks display. That important week is supported by Fife Council and it levers in a significant amount of funding from private sources.
That is a good basis on which to celebrate St Andrew's day in the future. I hope that not just the big cities but the smaller towns and cities and St Andrews in particular will be involved in the Executive's proposals for extending the celebration of the day. It is important to view St Andrew's day as the start of Scotland's winter festival, as is the practice in Edinburgh. We can promote Scotland as a place to come and celebrate the festivities of Christmas and new year, with St Andrew's day and its weekend serving as the launch for that important festival period. I hope that other cities will look to what Edinburgh is doing in that respect and that they will take St Andrew's day as the day when, across Scotland, we turn on the Christmas lights—rather than turning them on in the middle of October, as increasingly seems to be the case. We should celebrate that festival period with Scotland at the heart of it. Scotland knows how to have a party, and perhaps we should start that party around St Andrew's day.
I regret some of the contributions that we have heard from other members. Michael Matheson gave a particularly sad speech. Almost exactly a year ago, when we debated this bill at stage 1, he said:
"The Executive wants to kick the bill back to the committee because it would not like the result. It wants to send back the bill in the hope that the next stage 1 report will recommend that the Parliament vote down the general principles."—[Official Report, 6 October 2005; c 19880-81.]
We said that that was not the intention. We said that the bill was being sent back to the committee so that there could be a proper discussion about how we could develop the proposal in a way that would achieve support across Scotland. There were moaning people on the SNP benches who denied that and accused people such as me who have consistently supported the idea of having a St Andrew's day holiday of somehow selling out and of kowtowing to the Executive, as Michael Matheson put it. Well, he was wrong then and he is wrong now. I am saddened that he has come into the debate today with exactly the same attitude that he had a year ago and that, rather than celebrating where we have got to, he has decided to go for the same negative and sad line that he went for last time.
I have been consistent in my position on St Andrew's day. I have always said that we should have a St Andrew's day holiday on which we celebrate Scotland but that it should not be an additional holiday but should be a substitution for one of the existing holidays. Despite what the SNP and others claim, we do not have a significant shortage of public holidays in Scotland. As well as the formal bank holidays, there are many local holidays. Indeed, some places, such as Edinburgh, seem to be on holiday every other Monday. I think that we should have a holiday in the second half of the year instead of having one among the plethora that we have in the first half.
I welcome the way in which we have moved forward. I think that the committee's new report is better than its last one, which I thought was weak. The Executive's position is perfectly understandable. I support the proposals and hope that the bill can go forward in a way that reaches consensus across the chamber and that we will have a little less moaning from the SNP.
Before we go to winding-up speeches, I inform members that I expect there to be some discussion on the Standards and Public Appointments Committee motion in the name of Brian Adam. I therefore intend to be out of this debate by 16:55. Everybody will get the time that has been allotted to them, but I ask them to stick to it.
I am pleased to close for Labour in a debate that has emphasised a desire across the Parliament for St Andrew's day to be a national day of celebration and a holiday. The fact that so many members signed up to Dennis Canavan's bill showed the great level of support across the chamber for the intentions of his bill, although, as we have heard, those intentions might not be as easy to achieve as we might initially have thought.
Iain Smith is right to say that we have benefited from having taken the time to consider the issues around the bill and develop a partnership approach to taking it forward, although the SNP has demeaned that approach today. We come to mark St Andrew's day in a way that is fitting for a day of national celebration. That is why members on the Labour benches warmly welcomed the joint statement by the First Minister and Dennis Canavan. The statement was crucial in ensuring that the effect and intention of the bill will be widely understood. As Susan Deacon said, we must be clear about what the bills that we pass will achieve. Just as important, we must ensure that people outwith the Parliament are clear about the effect of those bills. I think that the experience of the process that the bill has gone through should be reflected on by the Executive and Parliament.
The debate around the bill has been helpful in clarifying the fact that it will take more than a bill on its own to achieve the intentions of the bill. Stewart Maxwell was wrong in his criticism of the Executive's position. His strategy would fail to gain the broad support that is required for this measure. I say to him and Michael Matheson that no party or person in the chamber has a greater claim than any other party or person has to taking pride in St Andrew's day.
Further, I disagree with Stewart Maxwell and Murdo Fraser's view that the extra time that we have had in which to debate this measure has not been useful. Whatever people feel about the quality of the report of the Enterprise and Culture Committee, the fact that there was further time to consider the issues has been helpful in that it enabled us to reach the point of agreement that we have reached and also to ensure that we are aware of what the bill does and what other measures will need to be taken to make it work. As the minister and Dennis Canavan said, by taking a lead in organising events of celebration and encouraging local people and organisations to organise their own events, the Executive will encourage people across Scotland to take St Andrew's day as a holiday and to take part in events to celebrate it.
We should think carefully about what we want St Andrew's day to mean for us. Obviously, we hope that there will be economic benefits. However, I agree with Shiona Baird that the issue is not only about economics. What is it, exactly, that we are celebrating? As Donald Gorrie and Kenny MacAskill suggested, some people will ask why we should have St Andrew and not, for example, St Columba as our national saint. As Duncan McNeil suggested, some will ask why, in a multicultural, multifaith country such as Scotland, we should celebrate a Christian saint at all. However, as Jamie Stone said, it is in the significance that St Andrew has to many that we may find the answer to those questions. St Andrew is not only our patron saint; he is the patron saint of Sicily, Greece, Russia, Romania and Malta. I was pleased to hear the First Minister emphasise the fact that he regards St Andrew's day as an opportunity for Scotland to celebrate its cultural diversity and membership of the international community. Dennis Canavan, too, endorsed those goals today.
For many years, the Scottish Trades Union Congress has used St Andrew's day to celebrate anti-racism and internationalism. It is fitting for a modern Scotland to celebrate not simply by reflecting on our past but by cherishing the new and future Scotland and celebrating the people from a variety of cultures and ethnic backgrounds who have made their homes here. I hope that the Parliament will pass the bill and, with its help, I look forward to a national day of celebrations that will be embraced by all the people of Scotland.
I, too, congratulate Dennis Canavan on the pivotal role that he has played in securing a new St Andrew's day holiday. I hope that it is not unconnected with the happy days that he spent camping in St Andrews as a schoolboy.
Last week, in the debate on a greener, fairer Scotland, I quoted from something that I wrote 16 years ago and I claimed, somewhat shamelessly, that I was being energy efficient by recycling an old speech. It seems to me that a number of speakers succumbed to the temptation to do that during this afternoon's debate. What is new, of course, is the First Minister's conversion to the cause of celebrating our patron saint's day as a bank holiday. However, I do not condemn the Executive for not backing the Conservatives' stance during the first stage 1 debate. I am content to reflect, with Donald Gorrie, that angels rejoice when sinners repent.
There is no doubt that, as many speakers reminded us, Scotland has suffered from the fact that it does not have a focal day around which to celebrate all things Scottish. As Stewart Maxwell and Murdo Fraser pointed out, an analysis of the St Patrick's day festival in Dublin in 2003 estimates that €80 million was generated for the local economy. However, compulsory holidays have a knock-on effect on manufacturers and others, who must count the cost in terms of lost production.
Various of the comrades, including Scott Barrie, who is not here, and Karen Gillon, in the previous stage 1 debate, were particularly vexed at what they regard as a hidden Tory agenda to get rid of May day. However, in a spirit of conciliation, what with new socialist parties apparently springing up in the Parliament every other day—there were about six socialist parties here the last time I counted—maybe they do still need something to unite them, so why not May day? Frankly, I do not give a fig about which holiday is swapped for St Andrew's day.
In the stage 1 debate last year, Tom McCabe tried to convince us that St Andrew's day could be celebrated in other ways without a holiday. I am glad that Jack McConnell obviously did not agree with him.
Iain Smith mentioned the St Andrews festival. As a former member of its committee, I remember the great difficulty that we had in building a programme of events without having a recognised focal date on which we could concentrate. An impressive array of events has already been organised for this year's celebrations and I encourage as many of you as possible to make the trip up to St Andrews to take part in activities such as the golden spurtle competition for the best bowl of porridge or the giant conker competition that has been organised by the St Andrews botanic society.
Of course, it is not only St Andrews but Scottish tourism in general that will derive huge benefits if we celebrate our national day with a bank holiday, as other nations do. In 2009, which has been designated the year of homecoming, many of the 25 million expatriate Scots will come back to the old country. A bank holiday on 30 November to celebrate our national day will be a terrific focal point for the year. Who knows, visitors to the country might also welcome the chance to register for a tartan on that day—an imaginative Conservative initiative that will have great tourism benefits and which was launched today by my colleague Jamie McGrigor.
A St Andrew's day bank holiday is an idea whose time has come. I am delighted to add my support for Dennis Canavan's initiative and I acknowledge his tenacity in securing this additional holiday.
I welcome the chance to take part in this debate, and I welcome the statement that has been signed by the First Minister and Dennis Canavan. We in the SNP understand the dynamics of thin ends of wedges better than most and we see the statement in a positive light. It is probably no surprise that Dennis was graciously grateful for it, but he reminded us of the delay. A year is a significant time in an economy, let alone in politics. He gave us an idea of the potential that has been pent up when he talked about the open-ended list of options for celebration that are now being envisaged and which could be implemented locally, nationally and internationally.
Dennis Canavan told us about the business support that will be forthcoming from people such as Lord Macfarlane and the Scottish Retail Consortium. It was interesting to hear that the conditional support is evolving and coming our way. Indeed, more significantly, we have had more than conditional support from the Executive, so it is seemly and right that we should welcome that statement.
Tom McCabe's statement about the possibility of celebrating Scottish culture and heritage is also exceedingly welcome. However, although I go along with the minister in his focus on young people in a modern Scotland, I add the slight caveat that I am also keen that he should follow the advice that Michael Porter gave to Scotland the Brand about not throwing the baby out with the bath water. We have a lot of cultural, traditional and historical stuff that people expect to see when they think of Scotland and we should not let them down. The key thing is that we have an opportunity to make St Andrew's day a bridge—a means of exporting goods and services and of bringing people back here to enjoy Scotland and its tourism offerings.
My colleague Stewart Maxwell told us that a St Andrew's day holiday is long-standing SNP policy, and also that the lack of a national holiday is a long-standing omission that leaves Scotland somewhat out of kilter with other countries. Kenny MacAskill made a comment about celebrating self-confidence and how that is a prerequisite to the effective selling of Scotland abroad. That is very much the case. It is one thing to play a home game very well, as we did last night, but it is much stronger to play away games. However, I balance that by saying that although we can use it to sell our produce, services, values and tourism, we can also do that with a strictly home game calendar. We own new year; we have Celtic connections, tartan week and the summer holiday season when people want to be in this wonderful country; the Edinburgh festival is at the tail end of the summer; and we have St Andrew's day. I must say that Iain Smith's idea of using it as a kick-off to the winter season is eminently sensible.
What struck me most today was Alex Neil's view that we could further develop a comprehensive array of prestigious events and keep the momentum going by using 30 November as a target date for taking the bill through to stage 3. Doing that would be wonderfully symbolic and it would restore the sense of urgency that we believe has been missing to date.
There is no doubt that there is support throughout the chamber today for the Parliament giving a strong lead on the issue. Celebrating St Andrew's day has always enjoyed strong support right across the parties.
Of course, there have been differences during our debates on the bill about whether an extra holiday is necessary to mark St Andrew's day properly. Genuinely different views were expressed in the Parliament the last time that we engaged with this issue. In particular, questions have been asked about the economic impact that an additional holiday would have. It was right for the Parliament to ask the committee to carry out further work so that an informed decision could be reached. The bill might be the same as before, but the approach to it through the joint statement has allowed consensus to be reached. As Alex Neil said, it shows how the Parliament, through its committees and the Executive, can work together to reach a consensus about the way forward on an important issue for Scotland.
We have all been clear that Parliament cannot prescribe a holiday for the individual. Ultimately, decisions about whether people want to have a holiday to celebrate our national day are not for Parliament to take. It is for employers and employees throughout Scotland to come to an agreement on that. We can make sure that the legislative framework is in place that will support those decisions. The bill will provide a focus that, over time, will encourage people to participate in a national holiday to celebrate St Andrew's day.
If the bill reaches the statute book, as appears likely, what steps will the Executive take to ensure that employers and employees are clear on what the bill will provide for, given that the message will go out that we have legislated for a St Andrew's day holiday?
The joint statement—which has already been endorsed by the Enterprise and Culture Committee and will, I hope, be endorsed along with the bill by the Parliament today—sets out the framework that will allow those discussions to take place.
As is pointed out in the report of the consultants who were commissioned by the committee, successful celebrations of national days are built on genuine public feeling. That is not something for which we can legislate, but we can encourage people and take a lead on the matter. Today, we should agree to the general principles of the bill on the basis that it is a symbol of the lead that Parliament wants to give. The provision will add to the focus on St Andrew's day in our public life and, over time, it will help to encourage a genuine public desire to mark St Andrew's day in a way that is appropriate.
The committee's consultants were also clear that there is no point in having a holiday unless there are events to provide a focus for activity on the day. They concluded, and we agree, that the Government has a crucial role to play. We have made a start on that, as Tom McCabe indicated in his opening speech. Since devolution the Scottish Executive has encouraged the celebration of St Andrew's day internationally and has helped to ensure that our national day is celebrated on every continent. I was also glad to hear Ted Brocklebank report on the celebrations that will take place in St Andrews.
Will Mr Lyon attend the events?
One never knows. The conker competition sounds interesting.
Last year, we began working to ensure that St Andrew's day is celebrated in Scotland, too. This year, we will do even more to ensure that people around Scotland have the chance to take part.
However, the Government on its own cannot create a national celebration. We in Scotland have every reason to celebrate our culture and history, but we need organisations and people throughout the country to recognise St Andrew's day as an opportunity to do just that by joining with us in making the day one of national celebration. Today, we have a chance to take that lead in marking off a day in the year to celebrate all of Scotland: its traditions, its culture, the modern Scotland, our pride in Scotland's achievements and our confidence in its future. I hope that the Parliament will take that chance, support Dennis Canavan's bill and endorse the joint statement.
I thank all those who participated in what has been an interesting debate. I thank the members of the various parties for the support that they have expressed for the general principles of my bill. Consensus seems to be breaking out all round us. It is sometimes said that the Scottish Parliament is at its best when we have a degree of cross-party co-operation and it has been heartening to see the amount of cross-party support for the proposed measure.
Although the Scottish Executive's apparent U-turn in its attitude towards my bill has been referred to, it would be churlish of me not to welcome the support, albeit qualified, that the Executive has now given. Like Donald Gorrie, I welcome people's conversion to a cause that they previously opposed or were rather lukewarm about. I, too, have gone some way towards compromising, in that I still believe that an additional holiday would be the best option. However, at this stage I am prepared to go along with the compromise settlement that has been reached with the Executive whereby the new holiday will replace an existing local holiday. To those who think that that is a sell-out, I say that half a loaf is better than no bread at all.
I can understand Murdo Fraser and other Conservative party members—and some businesspeople outside the Parliament—being concerned about the effect on businesses or, more accurately, on some businesses. However, I firmly believe that in the fullness of time the national celebrations of St Andrew's day will be a great opportunity for many businesses, especially those that are involved in the entertainment and tourism sectors.
I was pleased that Tom McCabe referred to the ceilidh that the Scottish Executive held last year and stated that it intends to hold a similar event this year. He expressed the hope that the ceilidh will help to launch a Scottish winter festival. Stewart Maxwell developed that theme when he referred to St Andrew's day as the launching pad for a series of celebrations throughout December and January: Christmas; hogmanay; new year's day; Burns day; and, of course, Celtic connections in Glasgow. As well as giving us a sense of nationhood and an opportunity for celebration, it will present many business opportunities to people throughout Scotland.
Reference was made to the claim that the bill will be largely symbolic, which is referred to in the joint statement that I agreed with the First Minister. Let me clarify the point. The bill is no more symbolic than any other legislation that sets up a bank holiday; it is based on the same type of legislation. If the bill is passed by the Parliament, the St Andrew's day bank holiday will have exactly the same legislative framework, basis and status as any other bank holiday. Even if the bill were purely symbolic, there is nothing wrong with symbols, provided that something genuine underlies the symbol. Our national flag, the saltire, the flag of St Andrew, is a symbol, but it signifies our nationhood. It symbolises something very important. There is nothing wrong with legislation that is symbolic, as long as something of substance underlies the symbol.
Several members, including Shiona Baird, Kenny MacAskill and Richard Baker, mentioned the international dimension of the celebrations. I agree with their sentiments. I do not want St Andrew's day to be some kind of narrow-minded, nationalist, chauvinistic celebration. I want it to be an international celebration, whereby Scotland will be put on the international stage and Scots, not only in Scotland but throughout the world, will have the opportunity to celebrate our membership of the international community.
Finally, I re-emphasise the widespread support for my bill. Last year, a MORI opinion poll indicated that 75 per cent of Scots are in favour of a St Andrew's day national holiday. The poll that is currently being conducted by the Scotsman Publications Ltd indicates that 95 per cent are in favour. Expressions of support have been received from many sources, including the trade union movement, local authorities, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Scottish Inter Faith Council. Support for the proposal comes from people from every part of Scotland, from people of different political backgrounds and different ethnic backgrounds and from people of different faiths and people of no faith.
The proposal is one round which the people of Scotland can unite as a nation. The overwhelming majority of the people want a St Andrew's day national holiday. Today, the Parliament has the opportunity to respond to the wishes of the people of Scotland and it can encourage everyone to celebrate our patron saint, our national identity and our membership of the international community. I therefore ask the Parliament to give unanimous approval to the general principles of the bill.